It’s like a layer cake, was the thought that reverberated in my mind as I went in for my next bite on a food tour with Toronto-based food writer Suresh Doss.
I wasn’t eating a layer cake, of course; one bite was a coconut milk-laden Sri Lankan rice-batter hopper — similar to a thin, crispy pancake — the next bite was a sweet, flaky, nutty Syrian baklava, followed by mouthfuls of a crisp, juicy halal chicken shawarma. The analogy Suresh used for how these foods fit together in the container of Canadian cuisine was that of a layer cake: how the micro-neighbourhoods that transport you — culturally and culinarily — exist intact while thriving next to each other.
Ever since moving to Canada about a year and a half ago, I’ve joined the legions of writers and cultural analysts who have grappled with defining Canadian cuisine. There have been thought pieces published on this topic that underscore how the waves of migration to Canada have shaped the cuisine in the absence of a strong unifying culinary character (partially due to the way that Canada’s wild game has been legislated out of the commercial kitchen’s repertoire), but I have still struggled to put my finger on what my food experience in Canada has been, compared to other places I’ve lived.
I grew up in the USA but was living in Italy when my husband and I decided to relocate to Toronto. Italy is a country that shouts its culinary history, opinions and preferences loudly and proudly. Although it is far from uniform — each Italian region has its own unique dishes and traditions — it feels more cohesive: when you’re eating in Italy, you know you’re eating in Italy. My experience in Canada, however, has been that when I’m eating in Toronto (or Vancouver or Winnipeg or Montreal) I feel like I could be somewhere else in the world aside from Canada.
Suresh drove me around the strip malls of Scarborough, each plaza representing a new wave of immigration or a new generation of those who migrated in years past. “We’ve seen insane migration — waves of it, over the past 60 to 70 years,” he said as he pointed out the City of Toronto Notice sign, a harbinger of continued development and change.
Indeed, Canada has become a safe haven for people escaping war, political unrest or seeking economic opportunity. It has welcomed these people in such a way that allows for culture to remain intact, versus what is likely to transpire in the United States, where people might be more prone to assimilate. Hence Suresh’s layer cake. “My theory is that in 50 years Canada will be recognized as a place where culture is preserved.”
Fusion foods are born in Canada
To access these micro communities from outside though, you need a car and a guide, someone like Suresh, who leads food tours in addition to writing for the CBC and others. “These establishments are built by the community, for the community, not for Top 10 lists,” he told me. “But if you put people in a place for a long enough time… you’ll have the birth of something new,” he said as he drove past a restaurant called Caribbean Bistro, founded by Chris Jerk, who invented the jerk shawarma. He noted other fusion foods born in Canada: sushi pizza; mutton curry pizza; ginger beef.
Canadian food writer Gabby Peyton, author of Where We Ate: A Field Guide to Canada’s Restaurants Past and Present, organized her book in chronological order to demonstrate the waves of immigration and how it has impacted what we think of as the food of the country. “When I was exploring the idea of defining Canadian cuisine, I realized many people were just looking at it from the home cook’s point of view. But think of donair; it’s an iconic Halifax food, but no one’s making it at home.” The same could be said for poutine or California rolls — Canadian staples prepared primarily in restaurants. “For the majority of our history, in restaurants especially, Canadian food really is immigrant food.”
Then again, Gabby considered, Jiggs’ dinner — a commonly prepared meal in Newfoundland and Labrador on Sundays, which is essentially salt beef and vegetables all boiled together — is a staple that is made almost exclusively at home. There are dishes like this for every province. “Everyone will tell you, ‘My mom or my grandma makes the best,’” Gabby said.
This was the same refrain I heard repeated endlessly when I lived in Italy. Which makes me wonder: perhaps Italian food is easier to define because home cooked food is more or less the same as the food that’s cooked in restaurants and vice versa. They eat what’s grown there, and they make the same recipes that have been passed down for generations. Variety? Well, living in the southern Italian region of Puglia, I was hard pressed to find cilantro, let alone tacos. I might have been able to get coconut milk at the grocery store, but sourcing lemongrass to make a curry in my apartment was out of the question. And there were no Thai restaurants within an hour’s drive of where I lived.
When I arrived in Canada from Puglia I was nearly frothing at the mouth to have access to an outstanding diversity of ingredients and dishes at my fingertips — which is why I’ll back away from being so confounded with the difficulty of defining Canadian cuisine, and just appreciate its foods and flavours, bite by bite of this colourful layer cake.
